Project: Ninehundred Overhaul

[WarlordOne]

Well I got a good deal on some new parts for my computer. I put it together and was a little disappointed that it still looked like my old computer. So I bought some sleeving and started looking around on the forums. I took everything apart to start my sleeving job and I just couldn't resist doing something to update the case a bit more...

Old rig:

Antec Ninehundred
AMD FX60
DFI Lanparty NF4 expert
Supertalent DDR 2GB
Thermaltake Bigwater 735
Thermaltake Toughpower 650 CM

This is what I'm starting with; I noticed that I had my older foxconn board with my 939 3800x2 in so but I had a good shot of my MB and FX 60 on hand. It looks almost the same with the lanparty board in there except the lanparty is more UV reactive:

New parts:

Intel i7 920
Intel DX58SO "smackover" motherboard
OCZ Flex EX DDR3 1600 6GB
XFX 9800GTX+
Sony Optiarc DVD Burner
Thermalright Cogage True Spirit heatsink
Techflex 1/8 Clean Cut Sleeving

It's not a gaming rig, just a general purpose machine. I do a bit of photoshopping and might play a game from time to time but for the mostpart I prefer to do that on Xbox live with some buddies. This thing will be storing movies for streaming to MCE, phone, laptop; data storage and internet for access for the wife. I do most everything on my laptop.

Parts being reused:

Antec Ninehundred (8moths old)
Thermalright Toughpower 650CM (8months old)
Sapphire Theatrix 650 Pro tv tuner card

Progress photos:

Lengthened the power, reset sw, and hdd led leads. Did some sleeving, too:

I did my layout right on the case. I was going to cut the bottom bays and turn them 90 degrees but I decided against that last minute.

More pics to come...

 

[soundguy]

wow dude, that is a great project so far... can't wait to see it finished...

 

[WarlordOne]

Well I'm trying to get a hang of this whole sleeving thing. This is my first project that involves sleeving so I'm still trying a few things to see what works the best. One thing is for sure, I like the weave of this cleancut better than the sleeving that came on my PSU.

Just got my True Spirit. Had to sleeve it's fan right away. One of the things I've already discovered. It's easier to sleeve over a pint of Guinness, LOL.

small diameter heatshrink to hide the wire colors:

and it fit into the end of even the tiny fan connector

3:1 glue lined heatshrink. I didn't realize it was glue lined but the glue cleaned off pretty easy.

The small diameter heatshrink made it possibly to cover all the wires

Next is my 24 pin...

 

[Smiththers2]

i really need to do some cleaning up with my Nine Hundred case.... looks good!

 

[madmike0408]

looks nice, I miss my old Antec 900

 

[WarlordOne]

I think they are nice cases if you intend to mod them. The ginormous fan on the top is great for getting the heat out. Should work well for the new i7 that's going to be in there soon.

I rethought my HDD layout. I think I'm going to get the scythe HDD stabilizer X4 to allow for better airflow and cable management. Maybe it'll even allow me to reverse the HDDs to clean up the space a little. One of these:

Anyone have one, any opinions of it?

 

[-(Xyphox)-]

looking good so far, cant wait to see more

 

[WarlordOne]

Ok, here's the color. It's VHT wrinkle red finish like you might see in any given Honda engine bay . I'm working on setting up a good photography area so I can take better pics so bear with me.

Fortunatly it is a darker red then the pictures might lead you to believe.

 

[Elledan]

Refreshing to see something which doesn't have a mirror finish for a change

 

[mrmylanman]

Looks pretty nice. I would personally like to see that rear fan hole cleaned up some but good work nonetheless.

 

[WarlordOne]

Looks pretty nice. I would personally like to see that rear fan hole cleaned up some but good work nonetheless.

I thought about recutting it in one big hex but I like the interesting pattern. And I already put some work into the vent hole. Every little ledge had to be filed level, deburred, and each point rounded. You won't cut or poke your hand on any sharp edges or points because there are none. Still I understand that to some it migh make it look unfinished, just I've seen the giant hex holes and they look kinda plain.

 

[WarlordOne]

I'm still wating for some parts to come in. New fans, case window, lights, etc. so I threw everything together for now to test the system out. Got it up to 4.2Ghz no sweat. Testing out the components looks like one of the HDDs is about to give up the ghost so that's another part I'm going to need to order. Oh well, can't reuse everything. Anyway, here's WIP shot of the case. Forgive the mess and the miss matched fans, they're all being replaced.

 

[MurderCityDevil]

Looks good man...makes me wish my antec 900 had a modular psu. It's such a PITA to stuff wires behind the mobo tray. This last time around I didn't even bother making it all look nice, I just sort of crammed it in and closed the lid on it.

Sleeving looks very clean as well.

 

[wrangler]

Very nice! Looks fantastic.

I am preparing to mod my 900 but much simpler. Gonna cut in the additional routing and I like the backplate access as well. Other than that, gonna leave it alone. I really like the case.

 

[Jayzilla]

You are doing a good job so far. Any one know where is the best place to get the clean cut sleeving, sleev my psu is the only mod I have left, might post some pics later.

 

[Helicopter]

Cheapest place to get sleeving is Ebay, there's a dealer named Furryletters, has all colors, sizes, and types.

OP, good job, I just recently painted, and cut my 900 up too, but forgot the 8 pin power doh!

 

[WarlordOne]

Cheapest place to get sleeving is Ebay, there's a dealer named Furryletters, has all colors, sizes, and types.

OP, good job, I just recently painted, and cut my 900 up too, but forgot the 8 pin power doh!

Thanks guys, but I'm not done yet. Just playing around with the system. As for furryletters, That's where I got mine. $5 per 25feet IIRC.

Case fans just came in today. Decided to go Arctic Cooling because of performance vs. price plus they are PWM which means I can make use of those MB header for automatic fan control. Why? Because that's the way, uh huh, uh huh, I like it [mutters] KC and the Sunshine Band. I've also been working on my photography setup. I'm trying to take the best pictures I can with the digital point and shoot I've got. Hopefully you can tell that I'm trying...

Pics:

I got 4 AC12025 PWM's for the case front and the push/pull setup on the heatsink. The F12 Pro PWM is going to be the rear exhaust. That thing is so quiet on 12v it's crazy! To bad that's about the only thing it's good for. We'll just have to see if they live up to the Antec tricools or the Yate Loon high speeds that they are replacing.

I'm sure you'll notice I threw in some pics of the stock Cogage fan that I already sleeved even though I won't be using it but hey, it was good practice.

Now, I've got more fan wires to sleeve and possibly shorten/mod...

 

[EndersShadow]

Thanks guys, but I'm not done yet. Just playing around with the system. As for furryletters, That's where I got mine. $5 per 25feet IIRC.

Case fans just came in today. Decided to go Arctic Cooling because of performance vs. price plus they are PWM which means I can make use of those MB header for automatic fan control. Why? Because that's the way, uh huh, uh huh, I like it [mutters] KC and the Sunshine Band.

I got 4 AC12025 PWM's for the case front and the push/pull setup on the heatsink. The F12 Pro PWM is going to be the rear exhaust. That thing is so quiet on 12v it's crazy! To bad that's about the only thing it's good for. We'll just have to see if they live up to the Antec tricools or the Yate Loon high speeds that they are replacing.

I purchased a whole bunch of Artic cooling fans as well, only ended up replacing them in a different system and I hated the fact I couldnt control them with a fan controller (at least the ones I purchased). That and I had to daisy chain them together as well. Made for one hell of a mess. Hopefully this won't be the case for you.

Happy modding

 

[Tbird87]

VTEC JUST KICKED IN YO

Nice looking build ^_^.

 

[WarlordOne]

I purchased a whole bunch of Artic cooling fans as well, only ended up replacing them in a different system and I hated the fact I couldnt control them with a fan controller (at least the ones I purchased). That and I had to daisy chain them together as well. Made for one hell of a mess. Hopefully this won't be the case for you.

Happy modding

Take a look at my sleeved fans and see what I did with the wire mess. The 4 pin is backward compatable with the old 3 pin fan headers so that shouldn't be an issue. Although I understand because there are a crapload of un-needed wires on each fan.

As for what I'm doing, my motherboard has 2 PWM headers, one for the rear fan and one for the CPU fan. The front fans will be plugged into a 3pin header. All fans will be software controlled.

VTEC JUST KICKED IN YO

Nice looking build ^_^.

LOL!

OK, the fans are modded, shortened, and sleeved.

This first pair is my Push/Pull for my Cogage heatsink. Wires on both shortened to 6". One daisy chain adapter was removed and that fan has been converted to single PWM with the rpm wire being removed from the 3pin and instead inserted into the 4 pin. The other fan keeps the daisy chain header.

This second pair is for case intake. Wires are standard length. Again, one daisy chain adapter is removed and that fan has been converted to single PWM with rpm wire inserted into the 4 pin. The other fan keeps the daisy chain header.

Rear exhaust fan. Removed the daisy chain adapter. RPM sensor wire was removed from the 3 pin and added to the 4 pin converting it into a standare 4 pin PWM fan. Also the decal was removed and rotated so that it will appear in the correct orientation when installed.

 

[EndersShadow]

Take a look at my sleeved fans and see what I did with the wire mess. The 4 pin is backward compatable with the old 3 pin fan headers so that shouldn't be an issue. Although I understand because there are a crapload of un-needed wires on each fan.

As for what I'm doing, my motherboard has 2 PWM headers, one for the rear fan and one for the CPU fan. The front fans will be plugged into a 3pin header. All fans will be software controlled.

Makes sense. I really liked how quiet they sounded, but ended up going Noctua in my build. They run a little faster (not that they look any prettier).

 

[Jayzilla]

Thanks guys, but I'm not done yet. Just playing around with the system. As for furryletters, That's where I got mine. $5 per 25feet IIRC.

Case fans just came in today. Decided to go Arctic Cooling because of performance vs. price plus they are PWM which means I can make use of those MB header for automatic fan control. Why? Because that's the way, uh huh, uh huh, I like it [mutters] KC and the Sunshine Band. I've also been working on my photography setup. I'm trying to take the best pictures I can with the digital point and shoot I've got. Hopefully you can tell that I'm trying...

Pics:

I got 4 AC12025 PWM's for the case front and the push/pull setup on the heatsink. The F12 Pro PWM is going to be the rear exhaust. That thing is so quiet on 12v it's crazy! To bad that's about the only thing it's good for. We'll just have to see if they live up to the Antec tricools or the Yate Loon high speeds that they are replacing.

I'm sure you'll notice I threw in some pics of the stock Cogage fan that I already sleeved even though I won't be using it but hey, it was good practice.

Now, I've got more fan wires to sleeve and possibly shorten/mod...

Hey WarlordOne, how much sleeving have you bought from there? You could try Skydrive for picture hostings, I think they can host faster or instead just links. I am expecting some good pics from you.

 

[WarlordOne]

Hey WarlordOne, how much sleeving have you bought from there? You could try Skydrive for picture hostings, I think they can host faster or instead just links. I am expecting some good pics from you.

I bought 100ft. I like Photobucket. I've been using them for years, I probably won't change any time soon. Are you having an issue with the pictures showing?

Ok, heres an update. I modded the Antec "Bigboy" to run on a 3 pin header now. You can see it plugged in above the memory in the picture below. I just desoldered the 3wires from a broken Yate Loon and soldered it onto the bigboy and jumpered it so that it would run full speed, that way it can be speed controlled by voltage. Of course I sleeved it, too.

The new sleeved fans in the case. Look for the sleeved wires:

I just wanted to get a detailed shot of the wrinkle finish paint:

More to come! Thanks for looking!

 

[EndersShadow]

Have you considered covering the fan logos with vinly? I know a couple modders on this forum do that. It might help give it just a little more clean of a look (which based on your sleeving is what you are going for).

 

[WarlordOne]

Have you considered covering the fan logos with vinly? I know a couple modders on this forum do that. It might help give it just a little more clean of a look (which based on your sleeving is what you are going for).

It's an interesting idea. The only fan decals easily visible are on the two front fans and those are just a easy to just remove to clean up the look. They're kind of convenient though as you can just look at them to see how fast the fans are spinning. I'll have to ask the wife what she wants as it's really her computer for photoshop and web browsing. I only use it to store and stream movies to the livingroom MCE. She loves how quiet it is now. Although she was getting pretty mad at me yesterday because she wanted to use it and I had it torn all apart!

 

[EndersShadow]

It's an interesting idea. The only fan decals easily visible are on the two front fans and those are just a easy to just remove to clean up the look. They're kind of convenient though as you can just look at them to see how fast the fans are spinning. I'll have to ask the wife what she wants as it's really her computer for photoshop and web browsing. I only use it to store and stream movies to the livingroom MCE. She loves how quiet it is now. Although she was getting pretty mad at me yesterday because she wanted to use it and I had it torn all apart!

Thankfully the only desktop computer in the apartment is mine, but my girlfreind has had similar gripes with me. Normally when I have all my boxes of spare parts out and she asks me how much money I have spent recently on "better" this or "quieter" that . Depending on if I feel fiesty I sometimes counter by opening up the closet and asking her to count the pairs of shoes she needs because they go better with this outfit or they make her legs look skinny.

P.S. I meant to say remove/cover them with a vinyl sticker. Wanted to clarify. I know that subset7 does that on all his builds (Project: Pure comes to mind).

 

[Jayzilla]

I bought 100ft. I like Photobucket. I've been using them for years, I probably won't change any time soon. Are you having an issue with the pictures showing?

Ok, heres an update. I modded the Antec "Bigboy" to run on a 3 pin header now. You can see it plugged in above the memory in the picture below. I just desoldered the 3wires from a broken Yate Loon and soldered it onto the bigboy and jumpered it so that it would run full speed, that way it can be speed controlled by voltage. Of course I sleeved it, too.

The new sleeved fans in the case. Look for the sleeved wires:

I just wanted to get a detailed shot of the wrinkle finish paint:

More to come! Thanks for looking!

I don't know, maybe it is just me, have to click the links to see the pics. So where do you get the heat shrinks? I can't find it at the Ebay store, thanks.

 

[Helicopter]

I don't know, maybe it is just me, have to click the links to see the pics. So where do you get the heat shrinks? I can't find it at the Ebay store, thanks.

Can't find heatshrink on Ebay?

http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=p3907.m38.l1313&_nkw=heatshrink&_sacat=See-All-Categories

If you're talking about Furryletters store I think he has it, but doesn't advertise it, I'm waiting to hear back from him on if he has the 3:1 stuff. If you have a computer supply store they should have some, ours sells four feet of 1/8's for a $1.50, but it's only 2:1, which is fine for the cables, but not for the connectors. The 3M stuff is really good.

 

[WarlordOne]

I'm using 2 types.

26' of small diameter polyolefin 2:1 heatshrink from Furryletters (on ebay) to cover the wire colors. These fit nicely into the plug ends and are also good for heatshrinking the solder connections of shortened or lengthened wires.

10' of 1/4" 3:1 adhesive lined heatshrink from genuinedealz (on ebay) to cover the sleeve ends.

I was using some hardware store heatshrink to cover the sleeve ends but if you were to bend the sleeving in a tight radius the sleeving would pop out from under the heatshrink. The new 3:1 adhesive lined heatshrink holds tight.

 

[Jayzilla]

I really like how you sleeved your PCI-E cables. I am still waiting the invoice from Furryletters.

 

[WipeoutFTW]

Nice, I think im going to paint my 900 now.
What kind of paint did you use? Just engine enamel?

 

[WarlordOne]

Thankfully the only desktop computer in the apartment is mine, but my girlfreind has had similar gripes with me. Normally when I have all my boxes of spare parts out and she asks me how much money I have spent recently on "better" this or "quieter" that . Depending on if I feel fiesty I sometimes counter by opening up the closet and asking her to count the pairs of shoes she needs because they go better with this outfit or they make her legs look skinny.

P.S. I meant to say remove/cover them with a vinyl sticker. Wanted to clarify. I know that subset7 does that on all his builds (Project: Pure comes to mind).

Well it is "ours" but she uses it 75% of the time since I pretty much stick to my laptop so, her opinion is high priority. But I'm lucky. My wife doesn't care how much money I spend at all. I just have good self-control. Well kinda. The idea to upgrade the home computer was due an impulse buy...

So...the wife likes the idea of removing the decals so I'm going to be removing the ones visible from outside the PC, so thats the front and rear case fan decals.

I really like how you sleeved your PCI-E cables. I am still waiting the invoice from Furryletters.

Thanks, 2:1 is the way to go to keep the PCI-E cables from making a huge mess in the middle your case.

Nice, I think im going to paint my 900 now.
What kind of paint did you use? Just engine enamel?

VHT wrinkle red. Hard to find locally as most auto stores only seem to carry black. It was the 4th auto parts store I tried that actually had it in stock. You need to bake it or heat it with a heatgun to get a tight wrinkle finish. It can be a bit tricky to get an even finish... and even after it's dry it's not cured for another 24-48 hours.

 

[Jayzilla]

Would you consider sleeve the SATA cables too OP?

 

[WarlordOne]

I'm thinking about it but I might just end up buying red SATA cables instead. I don't know if I want that look.

 

[EndersShadow]

I'm thinking about it but I might just end up buying red SATA cables instead. I don't know if I want that look.

I might suggest black ones personally, they tend to not bring as much attention to themselves and would fit nicely with all the black in your other cables.

I had red cables and while they worked I find my black cables look a little more stealth and dont draw as much attention to themselves. Also think about what happens if the red on the cables isnt the same tone/hue of the cable (which will probably be the case), it might detract from your awesome paintjob on the interior (which would defeat the point).

 

[Jayzilla]

I am agree with EndersShadow, red SATA give me a cheap looking feel. Since the interior of your case is abit tight, and you are going to hide the cables anyway, it is optional.

 

[WarlordOne]

I think that's good advice. It'll be impossible to match the red anyway. I have some old red SATA cables and they didn't look nearly as good as even the blue ones. Once I decide on the final routing I'll measure up the length I need and pick up some black ones.

 

[EndersShadow]

Once I decide on the final routing I'll measure up the length I need and pick up some black ones.

From Monoprice.com of course

 

[Jayzilla]

Hi WarlordOne. Finally I got my sleeving kit, will spend this weekend to sleeve and reupgrade my machine, I just sleeved my case and 2 water pumps, may I share some pics in your post? Btw, the 3/8 sleeving kit is not that tight from furryletters, you can skip that if you want.

 

[Athrix]

Nice work man, love the look of the black sleeving on the red case. Wrinkle finish is a nice touch. I'm about to do blue and black on my PSU when furryletters sends my stuff.